Buy or bugger off

Rant, rant, rant... I'm sure it all stems from one very popular guidebook's advice about bargaining in Vietnam. I dunno, but it must come from somewhere. Yesterday I saw the same thing repeated three times within half an hour.

I was in the backpacker district of De Tham and Bui Vien Streets scoring a set of Fawlty Towers DVDs - a rare find in Vietnam - While searching through the alphabetized trays I heard three customers, one after the other, attempting to bargain over an amount of cash so small no-one's minted a coin for it yet.

In Saigon, and especially where 99.9% of backpackers hang out, the price is the price is the price. Period. Stop squabbling over pence, shilling, cents and dong and annoying the phuc out of the vendor. Just buy whatever third rate, illegal, counterfeit crap it is you're so eager to hustle endlessly over or just bugger off.

The seller, who puts up with conversations like yours 100 times a day, every day, isn't out to stiff you. As most of them sit on a plot of turf worth around $1,000,000, they really don't give an elephant-sized toss about the scraps you fervently fret over.

Dumb attempts at shaving an amount of cash, so miniscule a Belarussian beggar would choke with laughter seeing it tossed into his cloth cap, off a dodgy DVD annoy the hell out of me. I can't quite imagine how the retailer must feel. Rant, rant, rant... over.

Comments

[Nicky]

I totally agree with you Noodle Pie. Don't tay ba lo realise that 1000 dong is about six and a half US cents??

[Huan]

My dad once bargained for 3 guava. They wanted to sell him 5 for 10,000 dong, but he insisted on 3 for 10,000 dong... just pick out the best 3. It brought a smile to everyone's face, saved us from having to figure out what to do with 2 unused guava, and reminded me of how little bits of kindness go a long way.

[pieman]

I'm not saying I blame the guidebooks, but it's almost as if these folk think they're not 'adapting and understanding the culture' if they don't annoy the vendor with their penny pinching ways.

There are many, many situations in Vietnam where haggling is the norm. Your average backpacker doesn't even enter within sniffing territory of that world.

Plus, if your'e gonna haggle, know you turf. Know the local price, know the competition's price. Don't just assume every other native is out to rob you blind of... whoooopppeee.... 10 cents. It's beyond moronic.

Huan, sounds like a win-win situation to me. Wonderful wedding pics by the way, Fabulous.

[Lei/cottontimer]

I agree that the amount of money converted to dollars is minuscule but it's hard to wrap your mind around it when dealing with thousands of Dong.

It took me a few months to realize that when if the vendor give me a price that fits with the one I had pre-determined was acceptable then I wouldn't even bother to bargain.

Most vendors in Ben Thanh are out to rip tourists off. While shopping for bags, for example, a friend was quoted $40 USD. When she said that she'd gotten a similar bag for $18 USD at some other place, the vendor quickly agreed to $18!!!

Anyhow, bargaining is suppose to be part of the fun of shopping here so I think the vendors oblige by jacking the prices up a little expecting to knock them down a tad.

[Lei/cottontimer]

Oh, and the price for DVD's varies so widely here. At Saigon Square, you can pay 15,000 VND for one while on Dong Khoi, it can be upwards of 22,000 VND each. When most tourists are buying 50-100 or more at a time, it adds up to a significant price difference.

[pieman]

The thing in Vietnam is, if people are trying to rip you off they're not too smart about it. They make it bloody obvious as in your $40 example. What I'm saying is, for the most part and esp. in the Pham Ngu lao area, the price is the price and it's miniscule and only the misguided would even think of trying to bargain.

For the record, whatever it was these guys I heard yesterday were trying to buy (a single CD I think) they were quoted 8,000VD as the price. Now, I don't really care what it was, but if you're trying to bargain down from something that costs 8,000VD you're an idiot of the highest magnitude.

As for DVD prices. You're right, they do vary depending on where you buy which is why if you insist on bargaining, you need to know the local price. And by 'local' I mean what the immediate neighbours are charging which will be different on Dong Khoi, in the Saigon Centre and different again in backpackerland.

[omih]

Totally agreed Pieman - there is also that attitude that during my time as a backpacker I came up against the: "If we let them get away with it then that price will become the norm and we'll ruin it for future backpackers".

That stinks. Its just an excuse for being tightfisted. People with their $10,000 in their pockets from their trust funds enjoying a gap year and arguing over a fraction of a penny everywhere.

As has been said - say no to the rip off price - then agree something in the region of the real price - and don't haggle over cents.

Traditionally in Vietnam, for locals at least, the room for haggling is around a third of the value, whereas in Thailand they start by asking, even locals, for up to three times as much. Travellers who have been in Thailand are used to this practice and aren't ready for the Vietnamese version of haggling.

[pieman]

The backpacker mentality you quote is not something I know a lot about, but I'm sure you're correct.

I was talking about this tightwad bargaining thing with noodlegirl the other night. She reminded me of times we used to shop in backpackerish areas in Hanoi and the things she'd hear the Vietnamese vendors say about the patheticv haggling attempts of backpacker customers...

Woahh... I won't repeat the finer points of the language used here, but cheap and dirty were two prominent adjectives Add three or four more colourful ones of your own choosing, then imagine someone saying them to you with a nice smile on their face and you smiling back in total ignorance. Yup. Wierd innit?

For the record, I've no problem with bargaining, just know your turf. Not everything is haggleable. Is that a word? it is now.

[deccanheffalump]

I totally agree. Some tourists (not just backbackers)make it their mantra 'not to get ripped off' when they visit places which do not have fixed prices.It's one more notch to them if they save the equivalent of $0.10 or E 0.5 when the guys they are haggling with haven't had a meal in two days. There are many misapprehensions about other countries and this comes out in some pretty paranoid behaviour.A large dollop of humanity and open mindedness would help the average traveller out to get a bargain.